On 03/06/2012 01:34 AM, Xah Lee wrote:
while what you said is true, but the problem is that 99.99% of
programers do NOT know this. They do not know Mathematica. They've
never seen a language with such feature. The concept is alien. This is
what i'd like to point out and spread awareness.
I can see your point. But that's not simply true. In my case and many
others, such issue was addressed during first week of introductory
programming classes. I was naively thought "computer = precision" and I
was stunned to find out the inaccuracy of computer calculations.
But as you experienced, I also stumble upon some people (specially Java
only programmers) who were not aware of it.
also, argument about raw speed and fine control vs automatic
management, rots with time. Happened with auto memory management,
managed code, compilers, auto type conversion, auto extension of
array, auto type system, dynamic/scripting languages, etc.
Maybe it's because I'm not in scientific community, that I learned to
live with such side-effects. Because 99.99% of computer users and
programmers can afford to, and willing to lose such small inaccuracy
billion times in exchange for some performance increase and convenience.
Although NASA may not accept my application for their projects for Mars
mission after this posting.
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